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Hello everyone,
I have the imperial splendour and a "rebalancing" mod for unit strenghts installed. Everything is as i want it but... my infantry (grenadiers and elite troops too) has no chance at all against common citizens protecting their town. where do i need to take the change in the scrips or so to make them weak as they should be as a non trained unit.
Thank you very much and sorry if my english is bad somewhere.
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Ideas for an Empire 2? I have a list of my ideas here. Please share yours-
Trade theatres need to have settlements, and should be explorablable.
Coastal battles need to implemented like in Rome 2. E.g The battle of quebec when the fortifications of the Fort protecting Qubec was destroyed with the help of British Warships on the river.
Slightly better range for muskets, I found out in Shogun 2 older Matchlock muskets have better range than an ETW line infantry musket.
Wilderness should be explorable.
More factions and emergent factions e.g Switzerland, Khanate of Khiva, Ethiopia.
Bigger map but not too big. Ranging from a bigger South America to malaysia area. China shouldnt be implemented due to size. Maybe Austrialia.
Eastern Factions should have a longer research time since historically the West was far ahead of the East technology wise.
Faster reload rates of all units since in empire it takes 15-20 rams of a ramrod down a barrel of a musket for a line infantry musketman. In real life it takes 3-5.
Bigger scale map, and keep the town system in place.
Garrison system where each towns automatically spawns a garrison force like in Rome 2 and Shogun.
Better graphics
Weaker and minor factions to act more defensively. American Indians should fight defensively.
Please share more of your ideas.
Creative Assembly, much to my disgust, got many things wrong with American Indians in Empire Total War. Though I'm not Native American myself, I have learned many things about them through research, videos where people from American Indian nations talked about their ways of life, etc. I will throw out a few things here. Feel free to add to this discussion.
Number 1: Guerilla warfare is impossible to wage because they made it so that no Native American units can hide throughout the map. Instead you're forced to perform a European style deployment of a non-European style army. In Napoleon's Peninsular Campaign, you're allowed to position Spanish guerrilla units anywhere on the battlefield (except in the enemy's deployment zone). I find it silly and innaccurate that you can't do that with American Indian units.
Number 2: The unit skins look extremely bland and stereotypical. The Chief's bodyguard unit contains a war leader who looks just like Disney's Powhatan from Pocohontas and he looks the same for every American Indian Nation. Plains Nation lancers are equipped with lances that look European when they had their own kinds of lances with feathers on them depending on their battle honors and no european steel tips. Huron-Wyandot warriors look like they belong in the Plains Nations because of their wolf head masks. Everything is backwards.
Number 3: Bowmen, musketmen, warriors, tribesmen. What do you notice about those titles? They are of separate units! What do those units do? Each weild only one weapon of war! I believe that those units should've been merged together somehow instead of repeating what was done with the Apaches and Chichimecs in Medieval 2 where they were divided between melee units and missile units. Contrary to what Creative Assembly was trying to portray is that Native American warriors preferred to fight at a distance instead of bum rushing into guns. But now you're forced to zerg rush warriors and tribesmen into gunpowder units and if you don't have experience chevrons, medicine men, or proper positioning, you get routed easily. In custom battles you can rack up experience chevrons but in campaign it's much harder. Bowman are also unreliable if you can't rush them in close enough to shoot their arrows (which they do painfully slowly). Yes they can sneak, but that bonus is mitigated when they get closer to the enemy units. Same thing goes for musketmen though they don't have to worry about getting as close.
That's all I'm going to contribute for now. Comment on whatever you want to :) .
Going off of Brainwasher5's cavalry discussion, I would like to point out that the categories of artillery in ETW are incomplete. There's no heavy artillery meant for destroying buildings, mortars have waayy too much range and can't be positioned like in realistic siege warfare (which would have trenches which the game technically doesn't have). All we have is horse artillery, medium artillery, and mortars. I feel they did the howitzers slightly better than the rest of the artillery, but they still lack mobility which isn't terrible cause it balances out the artillery. A minor thing is that the crewman who has to fire the cannon does so by fidgeting around with some kind of invisible fuse and doesn't even use one of those large igniters. I feel they should add cannons meant only for siege warfare and yet keep most of the old artillery. Anymore thoughts on artillery?
An employee of Wikia has informed Byzantine of Operation Overthrow. What is that, and why is it a thing? Does it violate Wikia terms and conditions?
So did any of you get the game? If yes, what is your opinion of it?
Well, Byzantine blocked me for good. That's fine, I could care less what he did. But I'm wondering, how many of you guys have been blocked? Just doing a little poll here to see.
At first glance, the Ottoman Empire's campaign in Empire: Total War might seem to be the most difficult. With poor lands, an awful cabinet, a very poor selection of early game units, and powerful enemies on nearly every side, the first few turns of the Ottoman Empire are probably the most challenging experience a player can have in the Grand Campaign. So here's a playthrough I've been doing. I'll keep the blog posted on experiences and what I could have done better. This is played on VH/H, with DLCs purchased.
These are the best equivalent to line infantry you can obtain in the early game. Isarelys are also some of the only units that can utilize bayonets and square formation. Compared to actual line infantry, however, Isarelys are awful, with all-round inferior stats and no rank fire ability. Palestinian Auxiliaries have better accuracy but not much else; in addition, they require a barracks in Palestine which is pricey, and cannot use bayonets or square formation, making them inferior in a melee. Be prepared to support them in any way possible as they will always be fighting an uphill battle. Train some, but only the bare minimum of what you need to survive.
Without DLC, Azzars are your only early option for skirmishers. If you play my strategy, you'll be losing bosnia for a bit early on and Azzars will be your only choice. Hayduts and Panduks are better than Azzars, with Panduks having superior melee capabilities and the irregulars having better accuracy. They can only be recruited in Bosnia, however.
These guys are awesome. Their ability to fire whilst in the saddle is extremely potent, making them better than any other cavalry in the early game by a long shot. They don't have much ammunition, but they usually have enough to last a battle. They are the perfect complement to your Isarelys. Don't get them bogged down in a melee with infantry, though, they'll get torn to shreds.
These melee guys are quite good at defending walls. There are probably better ways you could be spending your money than recruiting these guys, though.
An extremely circumstantial piece of artillery. Sometimes it'll kill everything, and sometimes it won't hurt a fly. Purchase at your own risk.
Available only in (surprise!) Armenia with the DLC, Armenian Archers are excellent support troops, particularly against cavalry and melee infantry. Place them behind Isarelys and they'll handily fire shots over their heads. They're pretty bad in a melee, though.
Expensive, but potentially necessary. Use geography to make sure that your shots achieve maximum effect.
All other units are either awful or have a better version listed above; do not recruit them.
The first turn for every faction is always crucial, as every decision made compounds into the future. I decided from the outset that I was going to switch to a republic due to the horrible ruler the Ottomans start off with and from the bonuses in town wealth growth and research rate, both of which the Ottomans desperately need. The first, easiest choice is to rearrange the ministers so that the best possible stats are available. Destroy the mosque in Anatolia and the coffee house in Egypt, to make room for schools. Offer Venice Bosnia in exchange for Morea (this will prolong peace with them and eliminate one front on where you have to station your troops). Disband all Semenys, Bashi-Bazouks and Musellims (which are nearly useless in combat and eat up your very meagre income). Destroy all fishing ports to make room for trading ports; for what trading ports there are, start building dhows which are to make a beeline for the trading spots. Offer France Mesopotamia. 20 turns of military access, and all your techs in exchange for physiocracy, 8,000 gold and trading rights. Not only does this give a huge boost in funds, it also mostly cuts hostile persia off from you. France is also going to lose the region shortly due to unrest, where it will declare independence as the Mamelukes, which can be useful in any way between being a buffer state and becoming a stalwart ally. Raise taxes to maximum; exempt all regions except the home region from tax. Spend any remaining gold on upgrading cultural structures to make way for observatories. Move the European army towards Crimea, which will need defending from the Russians soon. Sell your technologies to anyone willing to buy; make as many trading agreements as you can.
I don't know if this was supposed to happen, but I tried selling the Barbary States my techs and they counteroffered to give me a territory in exchange for my techs and unlimited military access. Needless to say I accepted.
Build schools and trading ports. If you run low on funds, try selling Serbia to Prussia for a good price. This creates a barrier against Austria.
Nothing past turn 1 is completely set in stone. Worst case scenario, Persia, Austria, Poland, Georgia, Dagestan, and Morroco all declare war on you on top of already hostile Russia. Persia shouldn't be too much of a problem thanks to the Mamelukes that are about to emerge. Austria and Poland can potentially be a huge pain if they aren't busy killing the crap out of each other (they usually are); proper management of your existing army in the Balkans should, believe it or not, hold off their assaults. Georgia and Dagestan aren't that big of a threat in the early game; as a bonus, if Georgia is wiped out early, they have a school in their territory. If the Morrocans end up at war with you, it's probably because they declared war on the Barbary States. Should this happen, it's better to ditch the Barbary States. Keep those trade lanes open at all costs! They are your lifeblood in the beginning of the game.
I was quite lucky and only Georgia and Dagestan declared war on me. I wiped them out with a small army of Isarelys and Armenian Archers.
The revolution should either be here or be here soon. Make sure you have no troops in your home region when it happens, otherwise there's a good chance they're going to be your enemies. Enjoy your new government with a better than incompetent ruler and better research rates!
Build schools in as many places as you can get away with. Focus on army techs, agricultural techs, and enlightenment before working on the others. The more agriculture and enlightenment you have, the faster your regions develop and become actually meaningfully taxable. Schools cost an arm and a leg but pay off immensely in the long run. On a similar vein, build observatories everywhere. Coupled with the revolution to a republic, and you will have an insanely fast research rates and lots of simultaneous research going on. Sell your techs to enemies of your enemies and use that money to build more observatories and upgrade your schools.
Of even higher priority than schools are trade routes. Capture as many routes as you can (one ship on each node, fill them up later). Build or capture as many 5th rates as you can for defense against those damn pirates. Declare war on the Knights of St. John and capture their fleet if you have to. Managed properly, trade can bring in tens of thousands of gold per turn.
Keep the Crimean Khanate alive. Not only does letting it fall allow Russia to sell its goods to everyone and make it an even bigger threat than it is already, it allows Russia to build ships, causing all sorts of pain for you in the Mediterranean.
Build minimal training facilities, and train the minimal amount of soldiers needed to survive. Save that money for your economy. Focus on farm buildings and school buildings.
Going on this vein for the next 10 turns or so, and the empire should emerge from its cocoon of decaying decline a refreshed and economically powerful force. From then on the world is your oyster. You could take out Russia in a long war across its empty lands; you can (you have to, actually) steamroll Persia, perhaps paving the way to India; you could kill Spain and Morocco and renew the Islamic crusade into Christian Western Europe; you could kill off your hated Polish and Austrian rivals to the North. You could wipe out the Pirates if you have the spare time and establish a colony in the Americas. Nothing really rivals you at this point.
Possible topic for expansion on this wiki is a list of the monarchs and leaders that appear in Empire: Total War.
It's a relatively easy matter to list every starting leader for every faction. Of course, the traits and even gender and name of leaders following the first leader is random. But is it completely random? That would be an interesting question worth exploring, since I don't think anyone else on the internet has bothered testing this yet.
For example, Prussia very often (but not always) has Frederich II ascend the throne after Frederick I dies. In addition, Frederich II often has very good stats.
Should America declare independence, in every single campaign I've seen them do so their first president is called "Diggory Talbot" with some generally good stats.
Making all of this information into a category of pages with consistency would be tricky at best...but at the very least we could create a list of initial leaders, which should be pretty straightforward.
After we have completed the work for everything else, hopefully.
Balagog gro-Nolob has made a cavalry navbox. As per my request, he separated cavalry into five groups:
1. Early Cavalry (Regiment of Horse Provincial Cavalry, Silidar Lancers and so on go here)
2. Light Cavalry (Hussars, Light Cavalry, so on)
3. Heavy Cavalry (Sipahis, Rajput Zamindar, Household Cavalry and so on)
But here's a problem that I haven't been able to solve.
There are many traits cavalry can have that make them different from each other. As it is currently seperated, I'm putting all cavalry with the "good stamina" trait into the light cavalry section, and everything that doesn't into the heavy cavalry section. But this isn't a perfect fit. When I think of heavy cavalry, I think of stuff you can throw into a big fight and come out on the other side relatively intact. But then you get lancer cavalry, which don't have good stamina for the most part. Throw them into a melee, they get torn to shreds. What I'm saying is that the navbox that I requested (this is no fault of Balagog's, mostly mine and the game's) is inadequate, because it doesn't fully describe each cavalry type.
Below is a list of traits that could potentially separate cavalry.
1. Early/mid/late cavalry (e.g Provincial Cavalry/Hussars/Household Cavalry)
2. Lancer/Sword/(possibly missile) cavalry (e.g Uhlans/Regiment of Horse/Light Dragoons)
3. Light Cavalry/Heavy Cavalry (e.g Colonial Light Cavalry/Heavy Cavalry)
4. Dedicated Cavalry/Mounted Infantry (e.g Garde du Corps/Light Dragoons)
5. Horse/Camel/Elephant (e.g Regiment of Horse/Camel Nomads/War Elephants
What do you think should be done about this? Please leave thoughts below.
Been having fun with manipulating enemy AI in the game. This tactic is great against AI, and can be used to frustrate other players to a certain extent.
Quick rundown:
Have infantry two or more regiments deep. When the enemy approaches, have the infantry fire and then immediately retreat behind the lines behind them. Make sure that whoever is in the front has fire at will on and whoever's in the back has fire at will off.
On another thread[[1]], I discussed a strategy where Prussia would ally with Poland-Lithuania to secure its southern borders, before swiftly crush its northern neighbors Sweden and Denmark, to grab more significant holdings and income for its primary, southern objectives. While the strategy had many merits, preparing Prussia well for the mid game while eliminating some of its early game problems (namely, getting bogged down in a three-way war with Poland-Lithuania and Austria), the strategy had one dangerous flaw: declaring war on Denmark is very likely to result in their Russian allies turning on you. With Russia being the huge, nearly insurmountable titan it is in the early game, and Prussia's many potential enemies on its doorsteps, Prussia could stagnate easily, prevented from easily expanding by the crippling fear of an invasion from Russia, with an inability to quickly knock Russia out of a war.
This new strategy I've devised addresses some of these critical problems, although it contains some DNA from the previous one, so to speak. This strategy focuses on eliminating Prussia's enemies completely, one at a time, with as much speed as possible.
At the start, disband all pikemen and semi-cannons. They simply aren't worth the upkeep that could be used for line infantry. Reorganize the cabinet for efficiency, place the gentleman in the school, upgrade buildings etc. Delete the coaching inn in Konigsberg and replace with a school. Forge an alliance with Poland-Lithuania, and if possible Saxony. Secure trade routes as needed.
Build a brig, and train more line infantry and regiments of horse for the armies in Konigsberg and Brandenburg. Wait until Austria declares war on you. Do NOT declare war on Austria, as that will piss off a lot of people. If Austria simply refuses to declare war on you, declare war on one of its minor German allies.
With Sweden engaged in a war with Denmark and Russia in the North, Poland placated with an alliance in the East, and the West largely safe due to a friendly Hannover and Saxony, you can now devote your complete energies on crushing Austria. Your two existing armies should eventually do the job, but have three or even four armies can't hurt. With proper management and training militia/backup armies to suppress regions, Austria can be killed completely (you'll want to kill them completely, otherwise they'll just cause you grief later) within five turns or so; at this speed, it's possible to knock it out before anyone significant declares war on you. Stop at the Ottoman border, consolidate your gains, build a couple more armies, and prepare to march on the West.
Without Austria to defend them, the minor German states are weak. They might look scary with their individual super armies, but all it takes is one decisive battle to knock them out of the game. In addition, nearly all of them have rich lands and schools. They should pose no significant threat, and integrating them into Prussia should only take another 5 turns or so. If possible, declare war on a german state that is allied with Hannover; this should hopefully cause Hannover to declare war on you, saving you the headache of having to worry about Great Britain, Hannover's ally. Even better, ally with Saxony and hope that Hannover declares war on it (it usually does), killing Hannover after it has taken Saxony.
If Venice declares war on you at this point, demolish it. The Italian States, Genoa and Savoy have the annoying tendency of declaring war on you, but their lands are rich and they are relatively weak should they do. Two or three armies should secure the Italian peninsula relatively quickly. If they remain peaceful, save those forces for other concerns, instead.
By this point Sweden should have hopefully taken Copenhagen, which you usually need to win the game. If it has, then great. Declare war on Sweden (it is usually friendless), take Copenhagen, grab Norway (which Sweden almost always takes near the beginning of the game), Sweden, and then either sign peace. Sweden's remaining lands act as a nice buffer between you and Russia, keeping Russia distracted while you complete the rest of your objectives.
If Copenhagen is still Danish, ignore it, and conspire with the Dutch and British to declare war on France to gain Alsasce-Lorraine. France is actually very easy to kill, since it only has two European territories by default. Its ally, Spain, is a completely different matter, with lands everywhere. If possible, avoid war with Spain. Thankfully, while Spain is hard to kill, its army is completely unremarkable. Taking just Iberia and Gibraltar will permanently cripple it, and if you really want to completely destroy Spain, invading its Italian holdings is a nice beginning into just taking Italy.
With the West finally done for, turn east, and declare war on Courland. This forces Poland-Lithuania to declare war on you without getting Russia involved. Past that Russia stands alone, and is relatively easy to beat.
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